


Compliments and Kisses

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: An awkward kiss after a first date.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	Compliments and Kisses

It’s an impromptu evening out. A kind of extension of an unexpected and deliciously languid Sunday spent wandering Home Depot with Scully as she tried to choose some new interior décor items.

“I’m bored looking at the same prints,” she’d sighed into the phone. “You’ve got interesting taste, Mulder. Care to help me decide?”

He was already changing tee-shirts before she hung up. Interesting taste. Was that a compliment? He still wasn’t sure, even after all these years of sharing cars and motels and heated words and take-out pizza and desperate confessions. They’ve even shared a chase kiss. 

Now, they’re sitting at a diner with a flickering fluoro strip above them, hair almost touching over the menu. There is another menu but he handed her one and she twisted it round so he could read it too. He’s reminded of the scene in Grease where Danny hides Sandy behind a menu so the jock can’t see them. His toe taps as he hums ‘You’re the one that I want’ under his breath.

Their faces are so close he can see the lines on her lips where the colour has stuck. The mole she usually covers dark above her mouth, the freckles on her face that make his chest tighten. She’s as fresh as Sandy Olsson and when they’ve finished their burgers and fries (she ate the lot and stole some of his fries too “because they always taste better from someone else’s plate”!) he pays.

“You don’t have to do that.”

He nearly says, but you’re my girl, Scully. But instead he asks if she wants a milkshake.

She does, she says and giggles as she takes the first slurping mouthful through the straw. He watches her as the stars spread across the cloudless sky.

“This was fun, Mulder. Thanks for coming out with me. Your choices were most impressive.”

Impressive. Is that a compliment in the field of artwork and pottery selection? He still can’t work her vocabulary out but it’s endearing, this obfuscation of hers. He drives her home, the thunk of her purchases punctuating the journey.

She lets him carry them to her apartment. “You’re being very thoughtful, today, Mulder.”

Thoughtful? Hmmm. “Let me know if you need any help with hanging the prints.”

“Oh,” she says, with a rueful smile, “I’m pretty handy with a hammer and nails.”

Of that, he has no doubt. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He heads for the door. She stays put and he can imagine her scouting out the best places for her new items. He’s halfway down the hallway when she catches up with him.

“Mulder.” She’s breathless but she’s only walked a few yards. He watches the stray stands of her curling hair waft up and down as she pants. “Thank you.” She reaches out her hand and he shakes it. “Oh.” She says, half-laughing. And he realises she meant to touch him, hold his hand, squeeze it, as a gesture of affection. 

He’s flustered and she’s giggling and he’s struck by the need to kiss that happy mouth and he bends just as she tiptoes and their foreheads clash and their noses smoosh together and she pulls back and chuckles again and he goes forward for the second time just as she dips her head and he gets a mouthful of hair and she really collapses then, face pink, chest bubbling, eyes bright. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and she shakes her head, wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her fingers. “I feel like a teenager on a first date.”

When she recovers, she pulls him by the hand into her apartment saying something about lucky they don’t have braces. Lucky. That is a compliment.


End file.
